The Rest of the Conversation
by anonyreaderfan
Summary: Stefan and Katherine continue their talk in her car at the end of the Homecoming 3.09. Katherine controls the conversation. Elena and Damon are part of the discussion.  Background taken from the Homecoming and various Season 1 and Season 2 episodes


Disclaimer: The Vampire Diaries is the property of the CW. No copyright infringement is intended.

~ X ~

**Katherine's car - on the roadside**

"If you don't feel, you won't be able to do what I need you to do next."

Stefan turned his face towards her. "What's that?"

"Get mad!" Katherine's eyes flashed.

Stefan looked down, his voice and body listless. "And what will that accomplish?"

Katherine, as usual, had her strategy all planned out. Now was the time to put her plan into motion. She jabbed a finger at him. "Klaus ruined your life. He ruined mine. We can't let him get away with it."

"And just what do you intend to do Katherine?" Stefan seemed indifferent. "Klaus used the only weapon that can kill an Original on Mikael."

"I'm not a Salvatore, Stefan. I actually have a plan and a backup plan and my success rate is pretty high." She boasted.

A tiny grin, the first sign of any positive emotion, cracked Stefan's frozen face. "We have had some spectacular failures, haven't we?"

Katherine was quick to spot this first indication that he was feeling something. It gave her hope that she could cut through his apathy. "Okay, let's accept that I have a plan, and I need you to help me with it. But there's other things we need to talk about." Katherine leaned slightly towards him.

Warily, Stefan looked at her. He was pretty sure he wouldn't like what she had to say.

"You don't want to feel; you don't want to let your humanity back in, but you need to if you are going to fight against Klaus." She gestured. "Besides, you can't stop it forever, no matter how much you want to. Once those gates open your humanity is gonna flood back in. How are you going to deal with it?"

Stefan shook his head. "I don't know if I can."

"Well, toughen up because you have to. And it's going to be painful. You need to have a plan to get through this." Katherine was adamant. "You need to make some decisions now because if you try to go through this in the usual half-ass, no think, no plan, spur of the moment Salvatore patented method, you will crash and burn!"

Stefan threw his head back against the cushion, arm covering his face. "I'm listening, but forgive me if I'm not going to take what you say at face value. You don't have a great track record for honesty."

"Fair enough." Katherine conceded the point. "First, we need to talk about Elena."

"Why am I not surprised?" Stefan muttered.

Katherine ignored him. "You need to stay away from her. You can't go back to what you thought you had."

"I wasn't going to. I was going to leave," Stefan admitted tonelessly.

"Riii . . ght! You would leave, and then you would be lost, and you wouldn't be able to resist contacting her." Katherine frowned at him, but Stefan kept his arm covering his eyes. "You can't keep going back to her, Stefan. She doesn't love you enough—" She interrupted Stefan's half-hearted objection. "Yes, she loves you but not enough."

"Your friend, that Lexi." Katherine's nose wrinkled in distaste when she said her name. "Didn't she have a lover? Lee, wasn't that his name? Wasn't she the one who turned him? Did she turn him against his will? You knew him? You must have asked him why he turned. Did she force him? Did she?" Katherine's voice pummeled him.

Stefan's response was so soft only another vampire could have heard it. "No."

"Then why did he turn, Stefan? Why?"

He remained silent, his body rigid except for a slight twitch in his cheek.

"Why, Stefan?" Katherine insisted he answer her.

"He said when you love someone enough you'll do anything for them."

"Don't tell me you and Elena never discussed this!" Katherine continued the attack. "Will she turn, Stefan? Answer me! Does she love you enough to turn?"

She steeled her heart to not break when she heard his soft half sobbed negative response. She refused to let her face show any emotion. Katherine, having won that debate, was clever enough to let it drop and switch to her next point. "You know she loves Damon too, don't you?"

Stefan didn't try to argue. "Yeah, I started out afraid when he showed up that she would learn to love him." A wry grin twisted his face. "Why wouldn't she? And then I was glad because she meant so much to him. She helped bring his humanity back again. And then when I was gone, not physically but emotionally, I saw how she turned to him. I saw the glances, the way they brushed against each other, and the private little jokes they shared."

"Damon is special, Stefan." Katherine pounded the steering wheel to emphasize her point. "Some people go through life like shadows, barely living. Not our Damon. Even when he was human he lived his life to the fullest – drinking, arguing, fighting, loving. He didn't just do, he overdid. He had to live his life the way he wanted. All or nothing. It's why he couldn't get along with your father." Katherine gave a little laugh. "At the Lockwoods's masquerade ball, he would have staked me, even if it meant Elena died because Damon either loves or kills. He would have been sorry, but he's always acted first and thought later." She cocked an eyebrow at Stefan. "Can you deny it?"

That got a small smile out of him. "No, that's my brother."

Katherine snorted. "His love, even as human came close to suffocating me. As a vampire? Well, what do you think? He has to own what he loves. Control it. I can't and won't be controlled. We are too much alike to get along without a buffer between us." She gave a little sad laugh. "You would have been the buffer if everything worked out."

Katherine tilted her head at Stefan. "As handsome as he is, have you never asked yourself why he hasn't had any lasting lovers? It's not that he doesn't attract women. He was obsessed with me. Damon loves with every fiber of his being. He does nothing half way. When I came back and told him I didn't love him then his love turned to hate. "But Elena can handle him, Stefan. She can absorb all that love. And I've never met another person who can forgive as much as that girl." She jeered. "She makes me ill."

Stefan scowled at her, but Katherine just shrugged. "But that's me. The point is; she's strong enough to handle Damon's love. He will mess up time and time again and certainly hurt her, but she will always forgive him."

They sat in silence again. Katherine let him absorb what she had said. She knew that if she left him alone he would see the truth in her words.

When she felt she had given him enough time she attacked from another angle. "You love your brother, Stefan. You love your brother even more than Elena. You need to leave and let them be together. He needs her, but if you stick around you'll always be between them. Guilt over you will hold them apart."

"How do you know what I feel, Katherine?" he asked bitterly. "You don't feel!"

"We already had this conversation, Stefan. I do feel. I suppress it as much as I can. Survival is my first priority, but I'm no different from any other vampire. You can only turn off the feelings for so long and then they break through. Accept it!"

Katherine waited to make sure he wasn't going to argue the point. When Stefan just shrugged, she continued. "I've always been headstrong. That's how I had my child and ended up in England with Klaus. Because I want what I want, and we both know that your human traits are enhanced when you're a vampire. But it doesn't mean I don't feel." She stopped abruptly and seemed to come to a decision.

"I am going to tell you the truth! Listen, because this is the only time you are going to hear it from me." Katherine was vehement. "I loved you both. I was attracted to you and Damon from the moment I met you. You, so shy and sweet and with that gorgeous body; Damon so lively and beautiful. What a handsome pair you were – Damon with those adorable blue eyes and your eyes, at first glance brown, until you catch them in the right light and realize they're green. You were such good friends that I thought the three of us could be together forever. Not right away, of course, I had a few things to clean up."

Stefan made a face at that. Only Katherine would call the mess in her life 'a few things'.

"And then the night of the Founder's Ball." Katherine stopped speaking, a lovely sweet smile on her face. She seemed a million miles away.

He frowned and prompted, "The Founder's Ball?"

She gave a little start and continued. "That was the night I truly fell in love with you. You were so sweet, so sincere. You touched my face so gently with your strong hand. You told me how you burned when you touched my skin, and you thought I was an angel. And then when you kissed me, I burned."

Stefan sneered. '"I was a real sap, wasn't I?"

Katherine refused to be provoked. "Somehow you reached inside me and found the human Katerina. I thought she died the night I came home and found my family dead. I didn't think there was any part of her left in me, but she was there, buried deep down. Somehow you reached her." Katherine shook her head unbelievingly. "Would you believe, I once told someone that life was so hard it wasn't worth living unless there was love in it.

"The night you died and I arranged my escape with George Lockwood I went and found your body. I kissed your dead lips and promised you we would be together again." She challenged him with a look, but Stefan wouldn't meet her eyes. "And I meant it."

She paused before saying, "There's one more thing I need to say. I'm sorry."

Sarcastically, Stefan said, "For anything in particular, or maybe it would be easier for you if I gave you a checklist, and you can tick off the important ones."

She laughed merrily and then sobered. "Actually, I want to apologize for two things. The first is when I told Damon I didn't love him. I ripped his heart open when I did that. I tried to make up for it by letting him know that I did love him. Because he's Damon, he would never admit it, but I think knowing that I cared helped heal the wound."

She took a deep breath. "But most of all I'm sorry about you. I didn't realize the significance at the time. I was too busy planning my pretend death. Emily warned me that your soul was pure, and that I shouldn't turn you. I asked her point blank why, but she didn't know why. She just heard that it was dangerous to turn a pure soul. If she could just have given me one solid reason why . . .," She hesitated, biting her lower lip. "But then it still might not have made a difference. I wanted you."

Stefan frowned. "I remember when I woke up she said something about sensing my soul was pure. It didn't mean anything to me at the time."

Katherine said, "I've spent my life running, planning, gathering information, making contacts, and when I had the time checking on you. I saw you in Chicago – saw how bad you were. I never forgot Emily's warning. Purely by accident, I did find a witch who actually had some facts, not just hints and rumors. Apparently true Rippers, not the occasional vampire having a temper tantrum or a bad day, but a true Ripper like you – no control what-so-ever - are the result of a human with a pure soul being turned. The human blood lust and the purity can't coexist. It's impossible to maintain a balance."

"I always thought I was just weak," Stefan mused. "I never understood why I couldn't control myself."

"You can't do it alone," Katherine affirmed. "You'll always need help."

Stafan grimaced. "Oh, are you volunteering?"

"Yes, Stefan, I am. I can do it. It's also one more reason you can't go back to Elena. Could you ever trust yourself around her? Never knowing when you'll black out. Are you going to come to one day and try to put her head back on her torso? Reattach her limbs?"

Stefan flinched. Katherine knew she was being cruel, but she needed to get through to him. "How do you think Damon is going to take that? Do you think he could ever forgive you, or even worse, do you think he could ever forgive himself for not protecting her?"

Katherine pleaded, "For once in your life, Stefan, think! Does what I told you make sense? Deep down you know it's true. Stop obsessing about how much you hate me and how I ruined you and your brother's lives and think ahead. Do you want to hurt people? Do you want to feel that guilt every moment for the rest of your life? Are you strong enough to fight the craving every single day, even if do manage to get back on animal blood? But remember there's no Lexi here to force you. Can you do it without her? "

"I can kill myself!" He sat up defiantly.

"Really!" She sneered, the sarcasm practically dripping from her tongue. "And how will that make Elena and Damon feel? Will you burden them with THAT, on top of the pain they feel for you now?"

Katherine prepared to play her trump card. "What's your human trait that's heightened as a vampire? You know mine and Damon's. What's yours?"

Stefan 's face twisted. "You already know it," he said. "You've thrown it in my face often enough. I care what others think. I feel what they feel and I want it to make it better for them. If they hurt I want to fix it."

"So when your humanity finally comes crashing down on you, how are you going to feel if you've kept Damon and Elena apart?"

Stefan slumped in the seat. "Stop pushing me," he begged. "What do you want from me?"

"I want you to work with me to kill Klaus, and if we make it through alive I want you to leave Mystic Falls and come with me."

Stefan scoffed. "Wh—"

"Don't!" Katherine demanded. "Don't ask me for the hundredth time what I really want. I'm telling you. I won't promise that you'll be my only lover. You know how I am. But I do want you back. I want you to cup my face in your hand and tell me I'm an angel. I want you to burn when you touch my skin, laugh at me when I play my games, admire me when I dress up." Katherine was shouting at him now. "Tell me I'm beautiful without me asking. When I'm out of sorts I want you to hug me and kiss the top of my head and tell me everything's okay. I want to make love with you until I fall asleep cradled in your arms, both of us exhausted. I want you to stop blocking how you felt about me. Remember how it used to be!"

Katherine reached over and grabbed his upper arms in a painful grip and turned him to face her. Her voice rose even higher. "Promise me this, and I will do everything in my power to keep Elena and Damon safe. You know it can never be the same between you. Even if you go back to animal blood it will be at least thirty years before you can trust yourself. I will keep your ripper side under control – I won't let you kill anyone. You won't have to be alone. And when it's too hard for you, when the pain and longing for her is too much, I'll pretend I'm her." She hesitated and then murmured, "I would do that for you."

She released him and turned to face forward again. She visibly calmed herself before softly continuing, "You can't turn it off forever Stefan and you can't spend eternity alone. Neither can I. This is our chance to make amends. You need to love someone, so love me. Damon is different – he needs to be loved. Elena will give you up if she believes you really are my lover. It's up to you to convince her. Just because she doesn't love you enough doesn't mean it will be the same with Damon. Maybe, just maybe, she will love Damon enough. Give your brother a chance, Stefan.

"Do what's right . . right for Elena, right for Damon, right for all the humans you **will **slaughter unless you have a keeper."

She forced herself to take a deep breath and relax, finger twirling a curl, not looking at him. She had, as usual, planned her battle strategy carefully and put it flawlessly into action. She could do no more.

Stefan obsessively circled the pinkie of his right hand on the car window. He stared at his hand like it and the perfect circles he repeated over and over were the most important things in the world. Katherine waited patiently. Finally he sighed and nodded, defeated. "Okay," he muttered.

Katherine slid across the seat up against him. When she started to unbuckle the leather belt on his jeans, he sat up and grabbed her hands.

"What are you doing?" His outraged exclamation made her smile.

'I need a show of good faith," Katherine explained. "I need to know you'll try to uphold your end of the bargain; that you can convince Elena and Damon."

He stared at her for several moments, lips pressed tightly together, and finally gave a quick nod, more of a jerk, and freed her hands. He slowly reached over to cup her face and hesitantly moved in to kiss her.

Katherine quickly closed her eyes before she could decide if the sheen in his eyes was from the street lights or tears he was fighting to hold back. She wanted what she wanted.

~Fin~

Author's Note

I am not a Delena, Stelena, Stefarine, or Damarine fan.

I wrote this story in the third person perspective but it is really Katherine's perspective.

I was intrigued with the concept of her, as a general, planning to capture the opponent's flag (Stefan = opponent's flag). As a good general she would carefully assess her opponent. She would not attack his fortifications at their strongest point. She would exploit his insecurities and weaknesses looking for chinks in his armor. She would sift through the facts, cherry pick the ones that would support her carefully planned assault, and then attack.

Are the conclusions she drew for Stefan true? That's the reader's decision.

Remember, it's Katherine!


End file.
